Preaching and Preachers

The Shape of the Sermonso on. Such statements come out one after another and you feel thatthis good man has allowed his reading to become a substitute for histhinking. We are meant to do our own thinking, and all your readingshould be designed to stimulate your thought and to give you a certainamount of information.The next warning I would give is to be careful-this especiallywhen you are writing-of too close reasoning. I have emphasised ingeneral, at the beginning in my original outline, the importance ofreasoning and development and sequence in the sermon; but do notmake the reasoning too closeor refined or subtle. Becausethis sermonis going to be spoken, and it is not as easy to follow a very close andwell-reasoned argument when you are listening as when you arereading. So if you go too far in that respect you are hindering thepeople from receiving the truth. This can apply also to extemporarypreaching, but it is a particular danger I feel in connection withwritten sermons.So I close by saying: Prepare, but beware of the danger of overpreparation.This is particularly true of written sermons. The dangeris to be too perfect. You have your ideal, you know what you want todo; but the danger is to overdo it so that the sermon becomes an endin itself. How do you avoid this? What is the antidote? It is quitesimple-keep on reminding yourself right through from beginning toend that what you are doing is meant for people, for allsorts and kindsof people. You are not preparing a sermon for a congregation of professorsor pundits; you are preparing a sermon for a mixed congregationof people, and it is your business and mine to be of some help toeverybody that is in that congregation. We have failed unless we havedone that. So avoid an over-academic theoretical approach. Bepractical. Remember the people: you are preaching to them.223